Trying to celebrate my green card arriving, but lots of difficult things on my mind

It feels like any excitement I have over finally being able to pursue a full time illustration career is being heavily overshadowed by the state of the world right now. It's hard to be motivated in a world plagued by a pandemic, mass shootings, climate disaster, supreme court nonsense, and a million other things. Everything feels a bit hollow and inauthentic, especially online.

But in spite of the collective grief we are feeling I am trying to make some little moves for both my business and life post-green card. I bought a new computer, after almost a decade of fighting with my ancient laptop from college. This was an incredibly scary purchase topping out at around $3000, but hopefully it's an investment that will last as long as the last one. Even just the thought of it is so shiny and bright, although it won't be delivered for 2-3 weeks.

I'm also trying to buy flights home to Canada see my family after two and a half years apart (from both covid and my pending green card application). It's also expensive. I am working on a logo project for some friends' business, and once that's done I am going to pivot my energy to finding and pitching myself to commercial clients, updating my shop page here on my website, and trying to reincarnate my abandoned social media presence. We'll see how that goes. Like I said, being online just doesn't feel natural the way it used to for me. I'm posting this little blog update in an effort to keep some momentum going, and to feel like I have an actual plan rather than just grasping at the nearest thought that seems to make any sense.

Kaila, a 30 yr old white woman with long brown hair sits casually and smiles at the camera, holding one knee that's bent up onto the chair she sits on.
I turned 30 last weekend. Feels good!